Posts Tagged ‘Ram Dass’

…”she came up and she said “Thank you so much. That makes perfect sense. That’s just the way I understand the universe to be.”

And I said, “How do you know? I mean, what have you done in your life that has brought you into those kinds of experiences?”

She leaned forward very conspiratorially and she said, “I crochet.””

This is from one of my favourite pieces of writing by Ram Dass about a sweet little lady in a hat attending one of his lectures when everyone else was a young hippy with beads and flowers in their hair. She had reached spirituality through a completely different route; not psychedelics or prayer or traditional meditation, but crochet.

I really needed to draw her. She’s part of my #100dayschallenge for #bettermentalhealth, inspired by my new knitting and crochet friends. I’m just starting to learn to knit, and one of the reasons is how calming I’ve heard it is. This little lady has the wisdom of the stars in her eyes achieved by hours with yarn and a little hook…

I love Ram Dass; he has so many quotes and words of wisdom that help me think in new and liberating ways. A while ago I illustrated a couple of my favourites, and was super excited when he shared one of them on his Instagram account! 😀

My brother Adam is amazing – he’s 6ft 4 and all smile. He’s someone I really look up to (in all senses of the word) and has been an incredible source of support, particularly over the last year. He’s a musician with a massive spiritual streak, and collects quotes, podcasts, YouTube videos to show his friends to blow their minds, and to sample in his music. You can find out more about his psytrance music here.

Ram Dass has so many amazing words and quotes it’s hard to choose favourites. Since being introduced to him and finding him on Facebook, his teachings have helped me to think and be in new ways on almost a daily basis.

When I was creating Dive Down, I pulled back from my support network of friends and family a bit to try and really feel into what had lead me to make the decisions I’d made in my life so far, look at where I had perhaps done things based on fear, and see if I could find different ways of navigating in the future.

Ram Dass was a great source of inspiration during that challenging time.

He doesn’t hold his punches. His words are written (or spoken) with love, but they aren’t always easy to read.

If somebody is a problem for you, it’s not that they should change, it’s that you need to change. If they’re a problem for themselves that’s their karma, if they’re causing you trouble that’s your problem…
– Ram Dass from A Heavy Curriculum

See? 🙂

I think that’s one of the things that I find most helpful about Ram Dass actually, the challenge that he often presents. The way he asks me to look at myself before anyone else, to work on myself before presuming that I can change anything else in the world. To see my own power in the work that I do when I work on myself.

In a lovely bit of circular connection, I picked Adam up from the airport on Thursday after he’d been travelling. He ended his adventures in Hawaii, where he was fortunate enough to spend some time with Ram Dass (now in his nineties) in person. By all accounts they had an awesome time, with a lot of just smiling and sitting in each others company. And, Adam gave him a copy of Dive Down, so I can add a pin to Hawaii in my map of where the books have flown to….

The Ram Dass Foundation Love Serve Remember website is brilliant, and has articles, quotes, podcasts, webcasts and films packed with inspiration. You can find it here: www.ramdass.org

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it…. Imagine that being in this love is like relaxing endlessly into a warm bath that surrounds and supports your every movement, so that every thought and feeling is permeated by it.
– Ram Dass from The Entrance to Oneness

I’ve been really enjoying weaving text and typography into my images recently, and have been keeping an eye out for inspiring quotes, lyrics and poems. I’m a big fan of Ram Dass, a Buddhist with some really beautifully worded advice and words of wisdom, including these ones…

And then, as a result of a conversation with a friend, I started including some words of my own to create some slightly more playful images…

This summer, we went on a short trip to catch up with some friends in Cornwall. I love it down there – I studied in Falmouth and lived in Penzance for a few years. We had family connections down there, so I like to think I’m part pixie…

There is an amazing wood near Penzance where I spent some time on my last visit, drinking in that lovely feeling of being in the dappled shade amongst so many different types of trees.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how I look at trees. Lucky enough to have some time in a hammock under a pear tree, I’d look at the branches and find their twisting so beautiful… and look at my arms and worry if they were toned enough! It was interesting how I couldn’t look at my own body in the same way I looked at the tree.

Then I found this perfect quote from Ram Dass (you can read it in full here) capturing exactly what I’d been thinking. Why do we bring in judgement when we look at ourselves and other people that just isn’t there when we see a tree? I never think a tree is too fat, too old, too gnarly….